“History will absolve me”
The title of a four-hour speech made by Fidel Castro on 16 October 1953

Havana’s flower girls are predatory,
leave the shade of stone arcades
in a practiced pincer movement.
One identifies the mark, diagonals,
too close, across the unattractive man
who sweats, uncertain, in the square.

Confiding hand in suet elbow
she holds fast as another beauty
links the circle from behind.
One lipstick kiss and he is suckered.
Pose for selfies, take his money.
Scarlet skirts and pink silk turbans.

Up in Revolution Square
a country weeps for Fidel’s death
Nine days and nights of mourning.
Throughout Cuba, street bands
stop their music, cocktail shakers
still their iced percussion.

Grandfathers who saw it happen,
saw the lives of thousands change,
dip cardboard placards in respect.
A child sways salsa in his head.
A cruise disgorges tourists, curious
to buy their taste of communism.

Kathy Gee lives in Worcestershire and works in museum and heritage organisations. Her first collection, Book of Bones, was published by V. Press in May 2016. She happened to be in Cuba when Fidel Castro died.

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